Alright, so I played it a few hours last night. To preface, I loved Apex Legends back in the day, I have more hours on it than any other video game and made some incredible memories playing it...
Alright, so I played it a few hours last night. To preface, I loved Apex Legends back in the day, I have more hours on it than any other video game and made some incredible memories playing it with my friends. I was excited to play this as soon as I saw the TGA trailer, because even though that yes, it's visually derivative, it still looked really well-made mechanically and I liked that it's trying to do something different. (i.e. I am the target audience.)
I kind of like it, but it needs work.
Its most critical problem is performance. It should not have released in this state. A competitive shooter struggling to hit 120 fps with frequent dips in chaotic situations on a high-end rig is just... not remotely acceptable. And there's something that just feels off, aiming feels a little sluggish. It's not terrible, it's just noticeable, and I notice it a lot in UE5 games. Which again, is not good. Competitive shooters need to feel snappy and responsive with indiscernible input latency. (For reference, I'm running a 5800X3D and an RTX 3080. Not exactly cutting edge anymore, but far from a slouch.)
Problem two, I think the looting phase is undercooked. In particular, the timing-based minigame for gathering crystals is an incredibly bad idea and slows the pace of looting down for no good reason. This is something players will be doing dozens of times each match and, if the game has any legs, people are going to start complaining about it within weeks if not days. Crystals should be mined in one quick tap (and honestly, simply shooting them would make it more fun and engaging too). I also haven't checked if this is the case or not (if it is, it's not clear), but I think the crystal currency should also be earned by killing enemy players to help incentivize skirmishes in this phase.
Stacking sets of armor also feels kinda... meh? Finding higher tier armor in Apex was exciting and rewarding because of its rarity, but in this game your current armor is lost when you die, so you need to stack a bunch of duplicates in your inventory to keep pace with the match's power creep. But this means that armor drops are incredibly common, and the droprate of higher rarities increases significantly after each raid. So the whole thing feels a little redundant in practice. So I don't know, maybe I will warm up to it with more games, but I don't love the game's economy at the moment.
But the fights are super fun. Each match you'll get a mix of close quarters combat (when raiding or defending a base) and longer range skirmishes (during loot and capture-the-shieldbreaker phases). Some people think 3v3 isn't enough players, but I disagree... With the way respawning, reviving, and abilities/ultimates are tuned, I think larger teams would lead to too much chaos.
Anyway. Just early impressions. It doesn't feel like it has the juice that Apex did back when it released, but it's not a bad game and it could evolve into a pretty good one. Unfortunately they made a couple of critical missteps (the TGA reveal and the launch performance on PC) which will be hard for them to climb back from, which is a shame.
Looks like any other game, though I only watched 5 minutes and I’m very much not the target market anymore. But I mostly wanted to ask if it’s common for these kind of promotional videos to have...
Looks like any other game, though I only watched 5 minutes and I’m very much not the target market anymore. But I mostly wanted to ask if it’s common for these kind of promotional videos to have comments turned off?
Ah, that makes sense. I hadn’t heard of it (I don’t swim in those lakes as noted earlier) but the little video I did see gave me the impression this is just a bunch of stitched together unity...
Ah, that makes sense. I hadn’t heard of it (I don’t swim in those lakes as noted earlier) but the little video I did see gave me the impression this is just a bunch of stitched together unity assets. But not like in a fun way. Palworld at least had the balls to dip into the Nintendo pond, though again I’m not super familiar with it.
So I was right in assuming that “comments turned off” means “we know this is crap”.
So this game has a little history that might be playing into it. Highguard was showcased at this past Game Awards as the final world premier trailer. In recent years, that spot has been for...
So this game has a little history that might be playing into it. Highguard was showcased at this past Game Awards as the final world premier trailer. In recent years, that spot has been for something big.
In 2024, it was Naughty Dog's still-in-development "Intergalatic: The Heretic Prophet". In 2023, it was Monster Hunter Wilds. And in 2022, it was the Final Fantasy XVI release date trailer.
And from what I saw online -- and even my own when I watched the Awards -- the reaction was: "...That's it? Oh." And then since that world premier, there's been practically nothing but radio silence from the studio. Yet it was supposed to release this month? The Game Awards was only in early December.
Some people started wondering if the studio paid to have that spot. Supposedly it did not. But that didn't stop the Internet from doing what it does best: making shit up and ragging on things that they know nothing about.
And given that the game kinda looked mid from that world premier trailer, it was kinda expected that the game would be DOA. And so here we are today.
At the very least they know public sentiment is going to be poor. This game has had outrage sights set on it since the game awards. Hero shooters are infamous, it may actually not be that bad but...
At the very least they know public sentiment is going to be poor. This game has had outrage sights set on it since the game awards. Hero shooters are infamous, it may actually not be that bad but people are going to hate it regardless.
Geoff Keighley at the end of next year's Video Game Awards: Wow, what a great show. We gave away a lot of awards, and showed a lot of trailers. And now, we're done. [looks directly into camera]...
Geoff Keighley at the end of next year's Video Game Awards: Wow, what a great show. We gave away a lot of awards, and showed a lot of trailers. And now, we're done. [looks directly into camera] That's it, the show's over. You can go home now.
[Geoff is also wearing a bathrobe and alluding to some reference, maybe. Consummate professional that he is, Geoff will continue to look into the camera for as long as the shot is live.]
I've never really played an FPS besides a good bit of CS 1.6 and a bit of CSGO. The previews for Highguard look like a generic gun game. The guns feel like they could be completely ripped from COD...
I've never really played an FPS besides a good bit of CS 1.6 and a bit of CSGO. The previews for Highguard look like a generic gun game. The guns feel like they could be completely ripped from COD or Battlefield and they would work fine. And that saps from the fantasy aesthetic for me. Conversely, I've been really digging Deadlock, every character feels distinct, with tons of personality. I think the hero shooter genre benefits from the 3rd person shooter style. Though take note, this first impression is certainly colored by how much fun I've been having with Deadlock.
Alright, so I played it a few hours last night. To preface, I loved Apex Legends back in the day, I have more hours on it than any other video game and made some incredible memories playing it with my friends. I was excited to play this as soon as I saw the TGA trailer, because even though that yes, it's visually derivative, it still looked really well-made mechanically and I liked that it's trying to do something different. (i.e. I am the target audience.)
I kind of like it, but it needs work.
Its most critical problem is performance. It should not have released in this state. A competitive shooter struggling to hit 120 fps with frequent dips in chaotic situations on a high-end rig is just... not remotely acceptable. And there's something that just feels off, aiming feels a little sluggish. It's not terrible, it's just noticeable, and I notice it a lot in UE5 games. Which again, is not good. Competitive shooters need to feel snappy and responsive with indiscernible input latency. (For reference, I'm running a 5800X3D and an RTX 3080. Not exactly cutting edge anymore, but far from a slouch.)
Problem two, I think the looting phase is undercooked. In particular, the timing-based minigame for gathering crystals is an incredibly bad idea and slows the pace of looting down for no good reason. This is something players will be doing dozens of times each match and, if the game has any legs, people are going to start complaining about it within weeks if not days. Crystals should be mined in one quick tap (and honestly, simply shooting them would make it more fun and engaging too). I also haven't checked if this is the case or not (if it is, it's not clear), but I think the crystal currency should also be earned by killing enemy players to help incentivize skirmishes in this phase.
Stacking sets of armor also feels kinda... meh? Finding higher tier armor in Apex was exciting and rewarding because of its rarity, but in this game your current armor is lost when you die, so you need to stack a bunch of duplicates in your inventory to keep pace with the match's power creep. But this means that armor drops are incredibly common, and the droprate of higher rarities increases significantly after each raid. So the whole thing feels a little redundant in practice. So I don't know, maybe I will warm up to it with more games, but I don't love the game's economy at the moment.
But the fights are super fun. Each match you'll get a mix of close quarters combat (when raiding or defending a base) and longer range skirmishes (during loot and capture-the-shieldbreaker phases). Some people think 3v3 isn't enough players, but I disagree... With the way respawning, reviving, and abilities/ultimates are tuned, I think larger teams would lead to too much chaos.
Anyway. Just early impressions. It doesn't feel like it has the juice that Apex did back when it released, but it's not a bad game and it could evolve into a pretty good one. Unfortunately they made a couple of critical missteps (the TGA reveal and the launch performance on PC) which will be hard for them to climb back from, which is a shame.
Looks like any other game, though I only watched 5 minutes and I’m very much not the target market anymore. But I mostly wanted to ask if it’s common for these kind of promotional videos to have comments turned off?
This might have something to do with it
Ah, that makes sense. I hadn’t heard of it (I don’t swim in those lakes as noted earlier) but the little video I did see gave me the impression this is just a bunch of stitched together unity assets. But not like in a fun way. Palworld at least had the balls to dip into the Nintendo pond, though again I’m not super familiar with it.
So I was right in assuming that “comments turned off” means “we know this is crap”.
So this game has a little history that might be playing into it. Highguard was showcased at this past Game Awards as the final world premier trailer. In recent years, that spot has been for something big.
In 2024, it was Naughty Dog's still-in-development "Intergalatic: The Heretic Prophet". In 2023, it was Monster Hunter Wilds. And in 2022, it was the Final Fantasy XVI release date trailer.
And from what I saw online -- and even my own when I watched the Awards -- the reaction was: "...That's it? Oh." And then since that world premier, there's been practically nothing but radio silence from the studio. Yet it was supposed to release this month? The Game Awards was only in early December.
Some people started wondering if the studio paid to have that spot. Supposedly it did not. But that didn't stop the Internet from doing what it does best: making shit up and ragging on things that they know nothing about.
And given that the game kinda looked mid from that world premier trailer, it was kinda expected that the game would be DOA. And so here we are today.
At the very least they know public sentiment is going to be poor. This game has had outrage sights set on it since the game awards. Hero shooters are infamous, it may actually not be that bad but people are going to hate it regardless.
Only if they know beforehand that there's going to be an issue. And the game is... not great.
Feels like DOA + COD. Kind of a weird mashup.
I'm over here trying to understand how it's even possible to mix a fighting game like Dead or Alive with a first person shooter like Call of Duty.
It was announced at the Game Awards as the "final reveal". From "the developers of Titanfall". Which pretty much doomed the game's release.
Geoff Keighley at the end of next year's Video Game Awards: Wow, what a great show. We gave away a lot of awards, and showed a lot of trailers. And now, we're done. [looks directly into camera] That's it, the show's over. You can go home now.
[Geoff is also wearing a bathrobe and alluding to some reference, maybe. Consummate professional that he is, Geoff will continue to look into the camera for as long as the shot is live.]
I've never really played an FPS besides a good bit of CS 1.6 and a bit of CSGO. The previews for Highguard look like a generic gun game. The guns feel like they could be completely ripped from COD or Battlefield and they would work fine. And that saps from the fantasy aesthetic for me. Conversely, I've been really digging Deadlock, every character feels distinct, with tons of personality. I think the hero shooter genre benefits from the 3rd person shooter style. Though take note, this first impression is certainly colored by how much fun I've been having with Deadlock.